have changed since the early days.
He says that he has seen a tangible
evolution in trader relationships.

“To start off with people werestill sceptical or wise about whatthey were delegating,” he says.“These people were living in twodifferent continents who, in somecases, had never met. Over the lasttwo years all these people havemet. I believe in the physical pres-ence of being connected as well asusing social tools. The conversa-tion is now more open in terms ofreceiving suggestions or advice onwhat is the best way of executingLast year the company tookanother step forward by moving toa multi-asset class trading modelwith traders now handling morethan one asset class. The tightercompetition in financial marketshas led to increased sophistica-tion of investment strategies andgreater numbers of assets that theasset manager is putting moneyinto. But the multi-asset tradingmodel is particularly relevant withMiFID II and the electronifica-tion of markets where some assetclasses have become similar in theway they are traded, says Minieri.These days portfolio managershave to look across multiple venueswhich is undoubtedly increasingthe complexity of their task. Get-ting to grips with the proliferationof venues, assets and platforms isnot an easy ask.

“The number of venues to
execute trades has increased—you
have more than 30 different venues
in fixed income alone,” he says.
“Add all this information together
and you see it is impossible for
a trader to exploit everything.

by market competence and local
market time zone,” he explains.
“Previously, a US equity order
would be automatically executed
in Dublin because the fund was located there. Now US equity orders
can be executed by the US trading
desks in Boston. So you are trading
where you have your best market
expertise and the best broker relationships.”

Steps forward

Minieri says it has taken a while
to roll this concept out and get
traders comfortable with the idea.
Initially the tasks have been completed manually—orders generated
by a US fund on a European equity
market, for example, will still appear on the blotter of a US trader.
It is up to the US trader to assign
the trade to a European colleague.
However, from this year Pioneer
has started automatic routing on
a number of sample funds where
orders are automatically sent to the
hubs with the specific expertise to
carry out the trades. The traders
are connected via global chat and
Minieri can see how conversations

Instead of complaining of lackof liquidity, I am a supporter ofa more proactive approach.